


Side B

by shield_maiden



Series: Mixtape [2]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-30 07:44:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12649197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shield_maiden/pseuds/shield_maiden
Summary: It’s the last day of 1983. Nancy Wheeler can’t exactly say she’s sorry to be leaving the year behind.  She lost her best friend this year, to that dark and spooky place, the one that haunts Nancy in her dreams.orMixtape Side A (and new years eve) from Nancy's perspective.





	Side B

**Author's Note:**

> It took me over a year but I finally finished the second half of Mixtape. I love writing the same scenes or companion pieces from the other characters POV.

It’s the last day of 1983. Nancy Wheeler can’t exactly say she’s sorry to be leaving the year behind.She lost her best friend this year, to that dark and spooky place, the one that haunts Nancy in her dreams. It hurts, to think of Barb, and Nancy can’t help wondering what might have happened if she’d been a better friend, if they’d left the party that night like Barb had wanted to. Would she still be here? Would they be spending their Christmas break having sleepovers and painting each others nails while they gossiped like the teenage girls they were? 

 

Nancy isn’t sure, she feels much older than her sixteen years these days. 

 

She lost her virginity too, to a boy with swoop-y hair and a dangerous glint in his eye. This, she now knows, was a mistake. A foolish error of judgement in which she glossed over all of his awful qualities and let herself get swept up in his good looks and charming smile and succumbed to her awful teenage fantasy of dating the most popular boy in school.

 

They broke up the day after Christmas. Steve had felt like he was being someone he wasn’t, to fit in with her and her ‘perfect world’, as he had put it. She’d tried to argue back, but it was useless. She thinks that maybe in her heart of hearts she’d known that this was looming on the horizon. She cried herself to sleep that night and the next, and spent her days in her room with the door firmly shut, only venturing out to use the bathroom or if she was hungry (mostly she wasn’t). Even Mike knew better than to try to come in, although he did pass notes under her door, mostly lame jokes that _might_ have made her smile and one heartfelt note that reminded her with a pang that he had lost someone too.

 

On the third day, she’d had the house to herself, her mom and Mike had gone to the mall, taking Holly with them, her dad was back at work. The winter sun was streaming through her window when she finally climbed out of the little nest of blankets she’d made for herself. Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror over her dresser she wrinkled her nose at her reflection. She definitely looked like someone who had spent the past two days in bed crying.

 

Fifteen minutes later she’d sat on the bed in fresh clothes, drying her hair with a towel, the rest of day stretched out before her, empty and featureless. She knew that she should probably study, monster fighting had made it hard to keep her perfect GPA and Christmas break would be over soon. She’d just scrapped by, and she’d never been comfortable with ‘just scraped by’, not when she knew she was capable of so much more.

 

Still, she’d sat on her bed with the towel draped around her shoulders until long after her hair had dried into it’s natural waves, her mind trapped in an endless loop of Barb, monsters, and Steve. She’d finally summoned the drive to go down stairs and raid the fridge and had been passing the bedroom window when she’d spotted a lone figure in the snow covered yard, watching the house. 

 

Jonathan. 

 

His shoulders hunched and his hands shoved in the pockets of his coat. Her fingers reached out, twitching the curtain back slightly, just to be sure it was him. His gaze flicked to the window where she stood and even from here she could see the indecisiveness in his posture. Finally he moved, leaving shoe prints in the snow as he crossed the yard, this spurred Nancy to move too, darting out of her room and thundering down the stairs, thankful that her parents weren’t home to yell at her about running in the house. 

 

She hadn’t seen him since Christmas Eve, when she’d pressed the carefully wrapped box into his hands when he’d come to pick up Will. It seemed like an eternity had passed since then. But she remembered the shy way he’d ducked his head as her own smile had tugged at her lips, and how the nervous butterflies in her stomach had only started flapping harder _after_ she’d handed the gift to him. 

 

She had opened the door, a wide, genuine smile on her face for the first time in days. His finger was poised over the doorbell, she’s still not even sure if he actually pressed it before she opened the door. 

 

“I saw you” She blurted out, as a blush rose on her cheeks. “From the window” 

 

He’d grinned at her, and her heart flip-flopped in her chest. “Who’s the pervert now, huh?”

 

“Shut up, Byers. Now are you going to stand outside all day?”

 

She had lead the way through to the kitchen, making her way to the refrigerator and grabbing a carton of egg nog, pouring a glass for herself to have something to do.

 

“If you’re looking for Will, he’s not here.” she’d said as she shook the carton in his direction, an unspoken question, pouring a second glass when he nods.

 

“Uh, no. No. I was looking for you actually.” He had admitted sheepishly as he took the glass of eggnog in one hand and reaches into his pocket and hands her a small plastic container. It’s a cassette tape. She stared at it in wonder, turning it over in her hands. No one had given her such a personal gift, not since Barb. “I have a present for you. It’s not much, but you did get me the camera, which is really great by the way. And I just wanted to give you something t—” 

 

She had cut him off by throwing her arms around him and pressing a chaste kiss to his cheek. She’d felt him tense in her arms, but slowly he had relaxed and brought his arms up to wrap around her waist.

 

“No, it’s not nothing.” She had insisted as she’d pressed another kiss to his cheek. “It’s wonderful.”

 

She’d been listening to the tape since he’d given it to her. Even now It was playing through the headphones attached to her walkman as she got ready to go over to the Byers’ house with Mike to celebrate New Years Eve. It’s not a party by any means, just herself, Mike, Will and Jonathan with a plan to watch movies, but Nancy is nervous. She changes her outfit several times, trying to find just the right mix of cute and comfortable, but not wanting to seem like she was trying too hard.

 

Finally she’s satisfied, and with a last look in the mirror she hit the stop button and left the walkman on her dresser. 

 

Mike is already waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs, impatient and ready to see his friend. “I thought you’d _never_ be ready.”

 

Nancy raises an eyebrow in warning at him. Which he promptly ignores.

 

“No one cares what you look like. We’re just going to be watching movies.”

 

She’s about to retort, to tell him that _she_ cares how she looks, when her Mom comes out of the kitchen and admonishes him for her. She smiles softly at her Mom, who has been so patient and understanding the last few days, and promises that they’ll be careful and that yes, they’re staying at the Byers’ house tonight.

 

They get on their bikes, Mike with his backpack full of candy and comic books slung over his shoulders, and start peddling. It’s not a long ride by any means, even if they do avoid the short cut of Mirkwood. (Nancy doesn’t even have to ask, Mike just misses the turn and keeps to the asphalt.) 

 

The Byers’ house looks comforting, a warm glow spilling out of the windows and into the snow covered front yard. Mike is off his bike first, leaving it on it’s side in the snow, Nancy takes the time to use the kickstand on her own and follows her brother up the steps and onto the front porch and waits for him to knock on the door. 

 

It’s barely a second before the door is swinging open and Will Byers is grinning out at them, with a look of excitement that is a perfect mirror to Mike’s. Jonathan stands behind his brother, and both older siblings smile fondly at their younger counter parts. 

 

The boys have an assortment of horror and sci-fi films picked out from the video store, and they get down to debating which one to watch first while Nancy and Jonathan busy themselves in the kitchen. Jonathan tipping popcorn into a bowl as Nancy upends her brothers backpack, shaking out the assortment of candy into another. Jonathan has his back turned to her, and she can’t help but be drawn to the easy shift of his back muscles beneath his long sleeved shirt, and she wants to rake her nails down his back and feel him shudder against her.

 

She’s drawn out of her staring by Mike, bounding into the kitchen and taking the candy bowl from her hands only to bound right back out again and join Will on the carpet in front of the Byers’ TV. When she looks back up, Jonathan is watching her, the tiniest hint of a smirk on his face. 

 

Nancy feels herself blush, as though she’s just been caught red handed committing some kind of crime. She supposes she has been, thinking such completely inappropriate thoughts about Jonathan, with their younger siblings mere feet away no less.

 

Eventually they migrate to the couch and Nancy makes sure to put at least two inches between them, even considering wedging the bowl of popcorn between them as a more physical barrier. She’s being weird, she knows, it’s just so hard to relax, with Jonathan so close and the two boys. And truthfully she’s not entirely sure she trusts herself enough to relax.

 

The first movie is full of jump scares, and the sensible part of her brain wonders if it’s appropriate for thirteen year olds to watch. But the rest of her is too caught up in the suspense, and when a particularly bad scare comes, she finds herself reaching for Jonathan’s hand reflexively. 

 

His hand is warm in her own, and he rubs slow circles into the back of her hand with his thumb, soothing her. Their eyes meet, in the glow of the television screen and they smile at each other shyly. Nancy shifting slightly closer to his warmth, until they’re touching shoulders-hips-thighs-ankles.

 

The boys fall asleep half way through the second movie, and Nancy gently shakes Mike awake as Jonathan picks up Will from the floor and carries him down the hall. Mike unrolls his sleeping bag on the floor and is out like a light as soon as his head hits the pillow, leaving the two older teens to their own devices. They turn the volume down on the TV and finish the film, Nancy taking advantage of their new found privacy to rest her head against Jonathan’s shoulder, idly tracing the line of pink new flesh along his palm.

 

The credits roll and neither of them move. The house is silent now, and to Nancy it feels like there’s this tentative spell over everything, a spell she doesn’t want to break. She finds herself nosing along the exposed strip of his skin where his shirt collar ends, and she inhales deeply. He smells like soap and vaguely spicy. He stiffens underneath her, and she pulls back immediately. Worried that she’s gone too far. 

 

His eyes are wide as the search her own. “Steve—?”

 

It’s not a complete question, but she understands what he’s asking and shrugs sadly, tearing her gaze from his.

 

“We broke up. It was mutual, I guess.” 

 

She can literally see the tension leave his body, and hums happily as he pulls her back against his side. His eyes briefly flick to the clock on the kitchen wall before coming back to her and tilting her chin up to kiss her.

 

The kiss is impossibly gentle, slow and unhurried. Like they have all the time in the world. It makes Nancy want to cry, she feels like she’s being dismantled and put back together all at once. She knows, that this feeling, is what was missing with Steve.

He pulls back and cups her face in his hand. She turns her face into the touch, pressing a kiss to the scar on his palm.

 

“Happy New Year, Nance.” He says with a smile that makes her feel like she’s the one who hung the moon and all of the stars.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on tumblr @crimson--petrichor! I take prompts for various pairings including Jancy and Harringrove!


End file.
